Breast Pathology Fellowship
This fellowship is designed for trainees pursuing an academic career in diagnostic breast pathology. Training is accordingly focused on building expert diagnostic skills in clinical breast pathology, translational clinical research, and education. Clinical material is obtained from the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center and from numerous extramural confirmatory and challenging consultation cases. Successful applicants will have completed an accredited anatomic pathology or combined anatomic/clinical pathology residency program. Prior completion of a surgical pathology fellowship is a bonus but not required.
Clinical Training and Responsibilities
The fellow will complete clinical rotations managing in-house subspecialty breast biopsies and surgical cases, as well as confirmatory and complex consultation breast cases, in conjunction with faculty. Opportunities for graduated responsibility, including mock sign-out, are incorporated into the training plan. The fellow will additionally gain experience in diagnostic molecular breast pathology, including interpretation of HER2 fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assays and targeted DNA sequencing panels in breast cancer. The fellow will participate in weekly breast tumor board conferences and radiologic-pathologic correlation conferences, as well as weekly molecular tumor board conferences when breast cases are presented.
Research
Dedicated time will be reserved for participation in clinical and translational research projects in breast pathology. The fellow will be mentored in design and conduct of a research project that can be individually tailored to personal interest and expertise. Successful projects will be submitted for presentation at national meetings and prepared for peer-reviewed publication.
Teaching
Teaching responsibilities include helping to teach gross and microscopic breast pathology to residents rotating on the breast pathology service, assisting in running weekly consensus and teaching conferences at the microscope, and helping to build a digital archive of breast pathology teaching cases. Opportunities for medical student teaching are also available if interested.
Faculty Involved with Fellowship
Ronald Balassanian, MD
Professor
Yunn-Yi Chen, MD, PhD
Professor
Poonam Vohra, MD
Professor
Molecular Pathology Faculty Involved with Fellowship
Patrick Devine, MD, PhD
Medical Director
James P. Grenert, MD, PhD
Professor
Requirements
To qualify candidates must have successfully completed an ACGME-accredited residency in anatomic pathology (AP-3), or anatomic and clinical pathology (APCP-4), or an equivalent program located in Canada and accredited by the RCPSC.
Candidates must have an unrestricted California medical license before they begin their clinical duties.
Duration
12 months with a start date of July 1.
Salary
Fellows will be appointed as a PGY-5.
UCSF GME Trainee Financial Resources
Application
We accept the CAP Residents Forum Standardized fellowship application and require a curriculum vitae, personal statement of interest, three letters of recommendation sent from your writers in PDF format. Please also include a photo of yourself in jpeg, or PDF format when submitting your application. We will accept applications for the 2026-2027 academic year starting April 2024.
Please fill out the application below and submit along with the requested documents listed in the application form and send to the Fellowship Program Administrator Suria Sadat.
We recommend downloading the application using the link below and opening using Adobe Acrobat software for the best user experience to complete your application and avoid issues with the fillable PDF.
Important Dates
| 2026-2027 Cycle |
|---|
| April 2024: Accepting Applications Summer 2024: Virtual Interviews will begin Late Summer 2024: First offers made until filled. |
The program does not discriminate with regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender expression, gender identity, gender transition status, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition (cancer-related or genetic characteristics), genetic information (including family medical history), ancestry, marital status, age, sexual orientation, citizenship, or service in the uniformed services, including protected veterans.